Jinx Removal
by Pop Horror
Summary: Frerard. Frank is bored- bored of school, bored of society, bored of the life he will inevitably be sucked into- so runs away from home in a flurry of panic. However, when he is taken in by Gerard, the extroverted hooker with no direction in life, the world becomes a whole lot more of an exciting place to be trapped in.
1. Disease

**So, new story guys...**

**This is going to be really long, like seriously, It's not going to be any of my sort of 'six chapter' stuff I usually do. Also, this is probably the story I've put most though and work into- I can already tell this is probably going to be my favourite piece of work, so I will literally worship you like a God if you spend a minute just typing up a quick review.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything except the storyline, which is completely fictional.**

* * *

The sky is sick. Apparently it's summer, but the grey vomit of rain oozing its way from the New Jersey backdrop is telling Frank otherwise. Not that Frank cares all too much.

The side walk doesn't tell him much different either- the cement is chipped and cracked, blistering like skin over-exposed to the harsh weather, chapped and crumbling and worn to death. The buildings are old, past their best. You can literally taste the pungent flavour of disease and crawling flesh from them. They scream for help. The scream for a cure, yet not a soul is willing to give it to them, so those rundown brick walls are left to decay and fester much like the people is inside.

This city is sick, and Frank fears he may be catching it too.

He happens to be sitting under a bus shelter- plastic and vandalised to the point of no return- that particular morning, not that it's particularly eventful. He finds himself under this exact same shelter most mornings in fact- to wait on the school bus- so it has become almost like a ritual, just another part of the daily routine. And that terrifies him. The idea that every day for God knows how long is going to be the exact same and he's just _adjusting_ to it. His body is just taking in the illness of _not caring_ and _rotting _like it is completely healthy.

He shuffles slightly on the metal bus shelter bench, ruffling his hood to give him better protection from the cold. The rain still continues to fall in the world around him- it's that really horrible type of rain. Y'know, the type of rain where it's just _kind of_ raining, the type that's more or less just a blur on the horizon, a sort of smudge?. It isn't the heavy stuff. The good stuff. The stuff you can dance in. No one would dare dance here.

He looks at the others by his side- school kids mainly, with the occasional elder or young mum wearing a synthetic track suit and with a pram by her side. They're all the same as him- either heading for or had hit disaster.

Already he could hear the metallic chug of the bus heading towards the stop. He couldn't see it yet, but he knew it was coming, coming to take him away to another lifeless day of school, a day of slaving away at a classroom desk, of pretending to be interested in the square root of 'x', of faking smiles to the friends he supposedly cared about, of wishing every bloody second of his life away with the ticking of a clock hand. And then what would he do? He would go home, get changed, do his homework like the good student he was, have dinner with his family, maybe watch some television and then go to bed. Just like he did every single other day.

And then he would keep repeating this until one day he would maybe go to college to study a subject he probably wouldn't give two shits about. Then he would go find a job- a job that made good money yet bored him out of his skull. Something safe. And then would come the house- a nice one, preferably in a highly regarded area- and a partner- probably some girl who he may or may not love- and settle down with her, have a couple of kids, maybe get a dog, and then they would rot. They would sit together in their three bedroomed semi-detached house and rot their days away, surviving but not quite living. They would be respectable. They would mow their lawn and dress accordingly and have barbeques with the neighbours and attend meetings with the parents' council, but they would never really do anything. They would do what they had to do, not what they wanted to do, not what the _needed_ to do. And before they knew it, they would be old and forgotten, sitting in their rocking chairs waiting for death to greet them, never really having done anything with their lives. Not anything significant, at least. Not anything that anyone would remember them for.

And he would die.

And no one would care.

As the bus began to come into view, Frank began to panic. There it was, his whole life planned out for him, step by step, second by second, and by stepping on that bus he was basically submitting to it. He didn't want to live a life without ambition, a life where he wouldn't mean anything or change anyone. He didn't want to lie on his death bed with a mile long list of things he wished he'd done or seen. He wanted to actually _do _something. He wanted to make some sort of impact, and the sickness of the city was simply holding him back.

So he ran.

He didn't really know where he was going- to be perfectly honest, he didn't really care- but he ran anyway, taking off and letting his feet carry him away from the bus shelter, away from the bus and away from the life it would inevitably take him to. He could feel the smack of the oxygen on the back of his throat as he ran; gagging him on the illness and sickness it carried. His thighs ached, his head span, but it didn't matter all too much to him. He just needed to get away from it all. The rational part of his brain was telling him to turn back, go home, return to safety, but it was drowned out by the ringing of the contaminated air slapping against his ear. He had no plan, no way to live, but that didn't matter too much- panic had taken over him, you see, provided him with a thirst to seek out and devour something, something that broke the cycle, something different, something free from illness, something pure.

A couple of blocks down the road, he takes his phone from his jacket pocket and drops it into a dust bin. He doesn't look back.

* * *

Night falls with a thick mist of uncertainty- the uncertainty of where he is, the uncertainty of how he got there and the uncertainty of where he is heading.

The hours seemed to pass within the blink of an eye. It was like the day of wandering around the streets of Newark, helplessly lost, simply hadn't happened. They were nothing but a myth. Time itself appeared to be a concept that had melted like butter and seeped away down the drain with the sheets of falling rain.

A droplet of water ran down the bridge of his nose, catching at the tip, hanging for a brief moment before plummeting down to his upper lip to trace the contours of his cheek and jawline before being wiped away by a woollen glove. Lost, he sat down on a nearby bench. He didn't know this part of the city- in fact, he hadn't known the part of the city he was in for a while now- but by the looks of it, it wasn't the sort of area he wanted to spend the night. It wasn't screaming danger- there were no gangs or sex shops or drug dealers within sight- but something about it just looked off. Something was just a little bit dodgy. Maybe it was the lighting, low lit and under budget, or maybe it was that it was eerily quiet for a Friday night, despite the fact there were several shops and bars lining the road.

But that bench would have to do. He lay down, pulled his hood up over his face as much as he could, tried to find the most comfortable position on the splintering wood and braced it. Right there at that very moment, he didn't care if he got fucking kidnapped or found by the police or caught pneumonia- he just wanted to sleep. He didn't care too much if he didn't wake up.

He wondered if his parents would miss him if he died out there that night. They had never really been the type to show much emotion, but would the loss of their only son be a different story? He guessed they would have to be upset, that they would have to cry and mourn and possibly even fall into a deep dark depression. That was the rules when you lost a child.

He wondered if they had sent the cops out looking for him yet. They may not have realised he was missing until only a few hours earlier, due to working late hours. Maybe they caused a commotion, screaming down the phone as they begged the police to find their 'sweetest little baby' or maybe they assumed he would just turn up before morning.

The sky was inky black, like looking deep into the eyes of a beast- the unblinking, unchanging abyss that only wanted to devour you whole. The sky devoured him that night, the starless shadowy mass taking him away from the terrifying thoughts of dying out there, all alone, of being completely lost, and more prominently, the fear of having to go back home.

The police cars, the helicopter search lights, the faces on milk cartons; they were what he feared most. It worried him slightly that they scared him more than death itself. That continuing his life scared him more than ending it. All he wanted to do was begin it again.

But how could he? He had no plan, nowhere to live, and nothing to eat… He didn't even have any goddamn money! Why he had run away in the first place bemused him completely. It was one of the stupidest, most ruthless and possibly most enthralling things he had ever done.

"Hey, are you okay over there?"

He was woken from his trance God only knows how many hours later, by a voice. It was high-pitched, wheezy, almost ugly amongst the smooth, silky silence of the night. Turning his body slightly in the direction of the voice, Frank pulled back his hood slightly to see who it belonged to.

"Are you alright?"

A figure lingers in the distance, a smudge of grey in the dreary street light. Frank can't see much, but the figure is slim, a halo of smoke smouldering around its face, shoulders draped in what appears to be a long, fur trimmed leather coat.

"Kid, what are you doing out here? You're going to catch your death!"

The figure comes closer yet until it is standing what could be less than a meter from the bench, bent over slightly at the hips to get a closer look at the half-dead teenager, cigarette dangling between its lips limply.

The figure is male- despite the soft, rather feminine features and the dress it is wearing- with long tendrils of sticky black hair falling over its face like a shroud. He once sported make up, but now it is smeared and worn, smudges of black eye shadow and liner coating his cheeks like fog, mixing with the yellowing smoke from the cigarette.

"I- I'm sleeping."

The man looks almost shocked by this discovery. Delicately, seamlessly, almost like it's rehearsed, he takes the cigarette from his lips and drops it to the ground like a leaf falling in the heart of October. He crushes out the remnants of the heat using his shoe- high heeled shoe- and Frank watches as the last sparks smoulder away in the damp.

"Sleeping? Out here is the street? Why are you doing that? You're going to get ill! Or God knows what else; you know what this area's like, right?"

Frank wonders why the man is still there, crowding round him, making a fuss out of him. He could have just moved on by now and continued with his life. But instead he decides to coo over him like he's a fucking _baby_ making all of these obscene hand gestures like he's putting on a fucking_ speech._

"C'mon, you should go back home… You have a home to go back to, right?"

Frank bites his lip. He seriously wishes this guy would fuck off and just let him _sleep._

"Fuck… What age are you? Did you- Did you get kicked out? No? Did you run away from home? Shit! You did, didn't you? Aw, c'mon, don't just sit there and look at me like that, please, speak to me honey, I want to help you…"

Frank sighs. He doesn't want to talk to this guy- by the looks of it he's some sort of prostitute and he really doesn't want to be mixing with him- but he guesses he's going to have to eventually.

"I'm sixteen…"

"Oh, good! That's a start! Here, you must be freezing, take my jacket…"

The mysterious stranger drags the leather coat off his own body and wraps it round Frank's. The sudden surge of heat is undeniably gorgeous and all he wants to do is curl up in a ball and snuggle into it, the soft curls of fur tickling at his skin. But he can't. He has to keep talking to this guy.

"Did you run away?"

Frank gives a solemn nod.

"Right, okay… Fuck! Right, I know that you probably know all about stranger danger and stuff, but seriously, I can't leave you out here, not with the weather like this and all the fucking trouble there is around here… Right, you can come home and stay with me for the night, we can get you warmed up, get you some clean clothes, I should have some stuff about your size… Then we'll get this all sorted out in the morning, okay? Please, just trust me sweetie, I just want to help you, honestly…"

Frank looks cautiously at the offer he has been presented with. For a start, he shouldn't trust the man- he could easily drug him and rape him and murder him- and he really doesn't want to have to make contact with anyone right now, he just wants to sleep, and then of course there is the worry that he might call the police and get taken home…

He really doesn't want to go home.

But then there's the promise of warmth. There's the promise of food and water and clean clothes and a proper bed to lie on. There's the promise of safety and shelter for even just one night. And that's an offer Frank can't refuse at that moment in time.

"Umm… Okay. If you say so."

The man's face lights up; fucking _explodes_ into a shining beacon of joy. Everything about him- the way he dresses, his voice, his every action or hand gesture- is so goddamn extroverted, and Frank isn't one hundred per cent sure if this is going to intrigue him or just fucking irritating him as time goes by. He's betting more on irritation.

"That's great! Okay honey, c'mere… Right let's get you back to my flat, can't have you out in the cold like this for any longer, can we? We'll get everything sorted out in the morning, okay?"

Frank's face crumbles and the man pauses.

"You're not going to phone the cops, are you? You're not going to make me go back home, are you?"

The man sighs, wraps his arm around the boy's shoulders. Frank can feel the vibration of him shivering, shaking right through him, rattling his bones with his own convulsions. He must be freezing, Frank thinks, standing out there in nothing but a flimsy dress and stockings while he steals his coat.

"For now, let's rest. We can think about stressful things like that once we are _both_ in a more suitable condition."

The man pulls him closer, the heat from his body soaking through the layers of clothing separating them, as they make their way down the street.


	2. Shadows

**Here's the next chapter guys! I hope you enjoy it!**

**Also, I don't want to sound like an annoying twat, but could you leave more reviews and stuff? like, I noticed quite a lot of people subscribed to this and stuff, but only got a couple of reviews. if you could just leave a quick little one to tell me what you like/don't like it would honestly mean the world to me!**

The man's flat smells of tobacco and stale beer and the musky scent of crystallised sweat and something sweet that he can't quite put his finger on. Frank feels automatically repulsed- the rancid odour contrasting completely with the sharp smell of freshly fallen rain- yet the sudden wall of warmth that blasts over him like bricks is enough to draw him in.

The flat isn't much different when the man pushes the switch, flickering the whole room into a gritty swell of tension- the furniture is uncoordinated, a jumble sale of lounge and kitchen, different shades and patterns, all drained of life from possibly years of overuse, everything reduced to a pallid grey. The whole room seemed strained- like someone had taken a once rich, plump home, pushed it through a sieve, removed all of the life and thrown back the apathetic mush that was left. The building had once been beautiful- Frank could tell- but years of mistreatment had done it no justice.

"It's not much, but it's home!"

The man grins as he gently slides the entrance to the flat shut behind them. Frank almost smiles back at him, makes a remark saying 'it's not that bad' or something along the lines, but then he remembers that he's supposed to be a pissed off teenager who has ran away from home and hates everyone and everything. So he stays quiet and shrugs the jacket off his shoulders instead.

"Here, let me take that for you… Um, do you want to take a shower or anything? I could get you some clean clothes sorted and make you something to eat if you want? I make some pretty good grilled cheese sandwiches…"

"Yeah. Sure…"

The man simply nods a sleepy grin towards the boy, unaffected by his unsavoury tone. That's one thing he's noticed about the man- he doesn't seem to be affected by the world around him, from the chilling cold outside to the crudeness of Frank's words. It's almost like he's living on a completely different planet all together, witnessing everything through a looking glass, never really taking everything in. It's not quite naivety, it's something more complex. It's like he does it deliberately.

"Here, I'll show you to the bathroom…"

Frank is taken to a doorway at the far corner of the room- one of two- which is opened to reveal a tiny bathroom, sleazy and murky, fully equipped with black toilet seat and crumbly shower tiles. Everything needs repaired, or in the very least a thorough cleaning, but Frank isn't going to say anything.

"Right, I'll go see if I can find you some pyjamas or something… I won't be a moment, honest!" he to open the door to the right of the bathroom before finishing, "Oh, and I'm Gerard by the way…"

"Frank"

Gerard smiles. "Nice to meet you!"

Frank titters nervously back.

He didn't lie. Literally ten seconds later he is back through, a set of printed pyjama pants and a t-shirt in hand. He passes them to Frank with a soft smile.

"There's some clean towels in there, I'll go get you something to eat just now and get you a bed made up on the sofa."

Frank nods and disappears behind the lock of the door.

The shower is good. After a long day in the cold and rain, Frank can think of nothing that would have felt better than that- standing under the hot streams of water, soaking his weary bones warming his glacial skin. It feels so goddamn _heavenly_ that it doesn't even matter that there is a, presumably older, cross-dressing man right outside the lockless door.

He gets out and dries himself after he feels his fingers begin to prune, suddenly finding a conscience and feeling guilty for possibly costing the stranger a fortune in heating bills. He dresses in the clothes he was supplied with- which are slightly too big, but he isn't for complaining- and steps out of the bathroom, welcomed by the smell of gooey cheese and butter caressing his nostrils.

"I thought you'd died in there! Good to see you're out before your sandwich gets too cold!"

The man- or Gerard as he should start calling him- is sitting on the crumby kitchen counter, mug in hand, a plate decked with grilled sandwich by his side, though it is mostly finished. On the wooden table sits another plate- although it goes untouched- and a chipped porcelain mug.

"Is this for me?"

Frank motions towards the food as he sits on a plastic fold up chair, hearing it scrape across the fake wooden flooring. Gerard towers over him, still sitting on the worktop, swinging his legs back and forth in beat with a non-existing song, heels clunking musically against the cupboard doors. He doesn't look real. He honestly doesn't. Everything about him is too _extreme_ to actually exist in real life. He looks like a character straight out of a movie.

"Of course it is! What am I going to do, make a sandwich just to watch it sit there? That's a waste of good bread, it is."

Frank nods and picks up the sandwich, inspecting it carefully.

"You haven't drugged it, have you?"

Gerard automatically laughs- a deep belly laugh that rumbles through him like an animal escaping from deep inside him.

"Don't laugh at me."

Gerard smiles, catching Frank right in the eyes, though the contact is broken straight away as Frank flickers away, nerves burning like candle light.

"I wasn't laughing at you, Frank; it was just what you said… It was funny."

Frank shoots a questioning glance, before going back to study the floor.

"I guess what I'm trying to say is that I would never dream of drugging you, or doing anything to you as a matter of fact", he smiles as he bounces down from the worktop, grabbing the chair directly across from Frank and sitting down, "I'm not interested in harming you in any way. Trust me, you're safe here."

Frank doesn't look up, keeping his eyes on the floor, watching the way his shadow twists in the lamplight. He likes that about shadows- life feels like such a permanent fixture, something that once you start travelling down one path, you've got to stick to it, continue with it till the end of your days. But a shadow- a beautiful marking, a painting, artwork- can be changed so easily with the movement of joint. You could mess it up completely and twist it up and start again with very little effort whatsoever. He liked that about shadows. He only wished changing your life could be as easy as that too.

"You should eat up, you must be starving…"

Frank nods as he picks up the sandwich, taking a small bite from the crust. It tastes good- it's nothing special, but just the sensation of having something between his teeth, of something to fill his empty and growling stomach, is a blessing. He eats the rest of it in silence.

Gerard takes his plate and empty mug when he finishes, taking them to the sink and washing them in the basin bursting with bubbles. He finds it curious that although the flat is more or less falling apart, Gerard is so on top of the dishes.

"Why did you run away Frank?"

Gerard blurts the question so easily, so simply it should be rude, but somehow it isn't. On any other person, that thick smothering of arrogance and confidence would be disgusting, but Gerard manages to pull it off, make it look appealing, exotic.

Frank is still taken aback by it slightly though. It's not so much that he didn't want to be asked- maybe as much as he'd tried to avoid personal questions all his life, he was secretly _craving_ them- it was more that the first time anyone had asked him something like that, especially so straight forwardly, just wanting to deal with the problem. People rarely asked him things like- questions about feelings- and when they did it was always so goddamn _awkward._ He remembered one time, maybe a year or so in the past, his mother had graced her eyes on a set of blushing streaks running along the underside of his upper arm, the patch of skin just before his armpit. These, of course, were self-harm scars, a set of markings that _disgusted_ him, but could never run away from. His mother, totally shocked by the discovery that _her_ poster-perfect son could be one of those deranged 'emo' children, was furious. So, instead of treating the problem in hand, she convinced herself that by calling him 'crazy' and 'insane', it would make it disappear. And it did make it disappear- that is, disappear underneath his jeans. The problem simply relocated to his hipbones and upper thighs, and slowly worsened, the thought of being a loony forever shadowing over him.

He sometimes wondered that if she had simply tried to find out _why_ he did it if he would have stopped. He wonders if people had bothered to find out his perspective on the story instead of saying it was 'immature' or 'crazy' he would have tried to stop. He thinks he might have. If someone had just bothered to sit him down and try and find out what was wrong, then his hips might not be such a battle zone. But no, instead his mother snarled at him, said he was stupid.

"What is this? Is this some sort of guilt trip? D'you think anytime you get grounded you can just cut your arm open?"

He wishes his reasons behind cutting _were_ that simple. But of course, nothing ever was. You see, he really couldn't pinpoint his reason for cutting- he wasn't sure if there had ever been a real reason. Maybe it was down to boredom. Maybe it was down to the feeling of eternal loneliness. All he knew was that when he got that craving just to pierce through his skin, see the creamy white break away to buttery flesh, watching the crimson slowly slip to the surface, it captured everything. It made him become something that wasn't himself. He became a creature- a beast- that saw the disgusting scars that ran across his body as beauty, although he always knew by morning they would be repulsive again. It was a never ending cycle that as much as he wanted to, could never break. The beast always came back, and he wasn't fast enough to run away.

And nobody ever asked about it. Nobody ever asked about anything.

But now Gerard was asking, and even though he didn't know the man, there was something heart-warming about that.

But he wasn't ready to open up yet. Not just yet.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. These things are personal, I know that, and I'm not going to force you into anything that-"

"No, I will tell you."

Gerard's eyes flutter in surprise, like the rhythmic beating of butterfly wings.

"Just… Just not tonight. I'm tired. I need to sleep…"

Gerard nods understandingly, a soft gentle bounce accompanied by a velvety smile.

"Of course, that's perfectly okay! You must be shattered! Here, c'mon, I made a bed up on the sofa for you…"

Frank is directed to the sofa- threadbare and mousy- laden with pillows and blankets. The host motions a hand towards the makeshift bed with a wild grin.

"Not the best bed in the world, but it's better than the streets, I guess!"

Frank lingers. He isn't used to this, not in the slightest. He's used to feeling cold, unwelcomed. Even in the safety of his own home there is still an icy draft that runs through the walls, catching his skin, cutting through to his bones. Here however, it's different. Here he feels safe, warm, despite all the possible dangers.

"Thank you."

"You're very welcome, Frank. Now you get some sleep, we'll sort all of this out in the morning, sweetie…"

And he goes to sleep that night in the strangers flat, surrounded by the scent of mothballs and the tickling of musty wool against his skin.


	3. Broken Glass

**I'm sorry that this chapter took so long, and this is probably the worst thing I've ever written, I'm so sorry! D:**

**In other news...**

**A big thank you to everyone who has been reading/reviewing this so far, especially Purifying Flame for basically keeping me sane! if you haven't already, you should go check out her work, she's amazing! :D**

* * *

Frank's dreams are hazy and disconnected, much like his day had been. They are little snippets of memories- trips to the beach as a child, the scent of fresh linen, vomiting into the gutter after his first experience of alcohol, a variety far too strong for his unaccustomed stomach- all disorganized and jumbled, like the pieces of a jigsaw sprawled across a room, waiting on someone to collect them, to piece them all together, to make it fit.

His dreams scare him. He dreams of being alone, forgotten. He dreams of wandering round the streets, lost and stranded. He dreams of Gerard gauging out his eyes out with a set of metal sewing scissors till his face is merely than a bloody lump of skin and bone.

It's the sound of clashing plates that wakes him from his slumber- a loud shatter of porcelain and glass clattering through his bones.

"Mother fucker! Stupid fucking… Oh Frank, you're awake!"

Gerard balances on a chair in the kitchen area, body teetering and wobbling as he catches himself on a cabinet, surrounded by a sea of ceramic shards. Grinning violently, he clambers of the insecure platform, a single non-broken plate in hand, dodging round the splinters adorning the floor like crystals, glinting in the light, bouncing beams of golden yellow around the room like starlight.

"I… I was trying to get plates, y'know, for breakfast, but I dropped them…"

Gerard blushes, a pink sheen frosting his otherwise insipid face. He really was rather strange, Frank thought to himself- he walked about in public in a dress and suspenders free and unaffected, yet he was mortified when he dropped a plate.

"D'you want me to help you clear it up?"

Gerard shakes his head automatically, mouth pulled into a tight grimace.

"No! Of course not! You sit down!"

Frank does as he's told, sitting at the remaining chair at the table, watching as Gerard gets down to his knees, a dustpan and shovel in hand, beginning to sweep up the remainders of the dishes. Frank acknowledges his outfit change- today his outfit is much simpler. He wears jeans and a t-shirt, not unlike any other person would, yet somehow it appears far more _extravagant _on him. The denim clings to him like a second skin; the t-shirt drapes off him, swirling with his every movement; hair falls over his face, eyes piercing through, shining brighter than the glass scattered across the floor. He really looks like he's from a fucking _fairy tale- _sparkling and glowing in the light-people like him just aren't real.

And then Frank catches a glimpse of himself. It's not much- jut a fragmented reflection in a shard of glass- but it's enough to remind him of what he really is. He is nothing. Everything about him is so mediocre, non- descript. Everything from his not-quite-long-but-not-quite-short hair to his skin tone that seems to fall on the border between pale and tan. He's just lukewarm. That's it, that's the word. Lukewarm. He feels like nothing, and Gerard is everything.

All of a sudden he looks up, catching the gaze of Frank who sits, silently, observing the strange man.

"So, what are we going to do about you?"

Frank stays silent, prays that he will just blend away, or that the ground will swallow him whole. He feels small, delicate, brittle, in the presence of the confident stranger, and he feel like he crumbles under the weight of every word that spills from his lungs. He is like a butterfly- one touch will kill.

"I don't want to go home."

Gerard's face suddenly changes. It's like someone has flicked a switch, as sudden as a pin drop, setting him from carefree to serious mode and it scares Frank a little.

"Frank, I know, but you know you can't just run away from home. It's not as simple as that. It's not safe."

Frank can feel the panic start to churn in him- the buzzing sensation of fear beginning to pulsate through his veins like venom, crawl under his skin and itch at his nerves. It's like some sort of indescribable force, pushing him away, urging him to run. All he wants to do is follow through with it.

"But… I can't…"

Gerard's face begins to falter- a slight twitching. A tremble. Like he was losing hope. He looks at Frank with something, something almost like pity.

"Frank. Stop it. Don't be ridiculous. You _need _to go home. I know it sounds amazing, running away from home, so romantic and idealistic, but it's not. It's not like in the movies, and you're stupid to think it is…"

"I can't go home though!" Frank interrupts, tears beginning to brim at the corner of his eyes, stinging and threatening to bulge over the edge, "I really just can't!"

Gerard chews on to his lip, swipes his hair out of his eyes, pushing it over his head, out of his vision. The light glimmers down on him, the light bouncing off the broken glass, creating a halo around him.

"Tell me why you ran away Frank."

Frank didn't want to tell him- his reasons were vague, inducing the fear that he may appear childish to his elder- yet at the same time he needed to get it out, blurting it all out in a messy exclaim of pain and fear, as that was possibly the only way to stop him from losing his only escape.

So that's what he did. He burst. He popped. He let every single trapped feeling escape his delicate little frame with the force of a steam roller, each word smashing its way through his chest, nothing held back. For the first time in his life, he let himself be unafraid of his own feelings. For the first time ever, he allowed the little boy inside his slowly decaying body to cry and scream and make a fuss, for he goddamn deserved it! All his life he had been quiet, sinking into the background, always the introvert, but today he wasn't being that shy little child anymore. He had progressed onto something more fabulous, simply because he had a pair of ears to listen to him and a set of eyes to watch him.

For the first time, someone cared.

Gerard nodded to every word intently, nodding occasionally, really paying attention to what he was saying. It wasn't at all like when his parents 'listened' to him- with them it was like a task, just another trivial little part of parenthood that they had to complete- but with Gerard it was almost like he _wanted_ to listen. He hung on to Frank's every word, grasping them and tearing them apart in his mind, really getting to know the problem deep down in its core, not just skimming over the surface. He would ask questions occasionally, but even when he was silent there was a look of deep concern tattooed into his face.

And then it was over. In little more than a flash of vibrant emotion, Frank was breathing deep, slumped down on the floor beside Gerard, tear stitched eyes and every single drop of him poured out into pools on the floor.

They sat like that for several minutes, just thinking, creating conclusions, gathering their thoughts and tying them up, stopping them from wandering away. It was Frank who eventually broke the silence.

"Please don't make me go home. I can't stand it there. Please don't phone the cops.

Gerard let his eyes drop to his hand, placed in his laps, holding glass, his eye lashes ghosting his cheeks, creating spidery shadows against his translucent skin. His face appeared to radiate, glistening in the light, catching the refracted rays from the glass. The white light was split, creating a faint glow of rainbow against his skin.

"It's not safe for you to be alone", he began, words prosaic, straight to the point, "But I could never make you go home. I couldn't do that to you, because I am very aware of how miserable you are there…" he drops the shard of glass into his lap, tilts his head back to eye at the ceiling. His eyes trace the nauseating yellow stain of damp from where it begins in the corner to where it meets the light in the centre. His teeth grip his lip, biting hard, thinking harder.

"I'll make you a deal", he continues, breathe ropey, hands twitching in nerves, or maybe even fear, "I won't make you go home as long… As long as you live here with me…"

His words cut through like a knife, stabbing Frank, filling him with the stinging pain of shock. His request was ludicrous, yet the way Gerard gaped, eyes filled with hope, made it seem perfectly rational. Perfectly, perfectly rational.

"I know it sounds… ridiculous, Frank, me being who I am and all of that…"

Frank stares blankly at the man in front of him, confused by is words.

"I'm a prostitute Frank, don't act stupid. I know you're not."

Frank goes to speak, yet his words come empty. His mouth drops in protest, yet no action is made. Gerard has a way with his words- his confidence- that simply silences him.

"I know it sounds crazy, probably dangerous, but trust me, you'll be safer here than out there. And I don't think I could let you out there on your own. Not with what I know."

It was like Gerard knew Frank. The way he looked at him, let his eyes settle on his, it was almost like he _was _him. It was like he was looking into a mirror, studying every little detail of himself, trying to find out who he really was. Or maybe it was something else. Maybe it was like he was looking into the past, through a photo album, tracing his eyes across a picture of what he used to be, of the juvenile days of adolescence.

"But, I can't stay here", Frank glances around the room- it is far from well kept, and he can't imagine that it takes much income to stay at that state. He knows it for a fact. Gerard is poor and he is struggling as it is to stay alive. Without a job, Frank would only be a further burden. "I don't have a job or anything, and you would have to pay for me as well as yourself…"

Gerard bites at his lips again, ripping a tiny chunk of the skin away, letting a tiny drop of blood pool to the surface, licking it off and sucking on the tiny wound, the skin stinging as it heals.

"That's something I'm sure I can get around. I just want to see that you're safe. Happy."

Now _that_ confused Frank. Gerard was a complete stranger- Gerard was nothing to Frank and Frank was nothing to Gerard- yet Gerard had already taken on the role of Frank's protector. He was caring for him, looking after and bloody well desperate to get him to stay with him. It scared him a little. Was that not the perfect set up for some sort of horror movie?

"I don't know, Gerard. I don't know you. I don't know you at all…"

Gerard sighs. It's a sigh of genuine disappointment, genuine heart break. He fails to make eye contact after this, admitting to defeat.

"You don't have to. Of course you don't. I understand… It's up to you… It was a stupid idea anyway."

But that's the thing. Frank isn't sure if he wants it to be _up to him._ Part of him doesn't want to take the invitation- is scared stiff of what could end up being his demise- yet another little segment of him does- it wants to run to the safety of Gerard and snuggle up, forget about everything in the dingy flat with the man in stilettoes.

But of course, he couldn't agree to that. It would be ridiculous, irresponsible, idiotic, practically choosing to be kidnapped and raped and murdered.

He kind of wished Gerard would take the choice away from him, because when it all boiled down to it, he had no idea how to survive in the real world on his own, and there was no way in hell he was going home.

"If you want I can go like pack you a bag or something, if you want, that is… I can go get you some money or something… I can't let you leave here without at least something…"

"No."

Gerard's eyes shoot up from where they were comfortably absorbed into the floor, his face snapping into shock, melting into relief then staining with confusion.

"I mean… What I mean is I _will_ stay with you. For just now, anyway…"

A blink-and-you'll miss-it grin flickers across Gerard's face like the flash of a traffic light- brief, parting, but bright enough to shine through everything else. And just like it had never happened, Gerard's face is serious again.

"Okay, that's only if you want to, I'm not forcing you into anything…"

Frank just smiles to this. That's all.

This is either the best or worst decision he ever made.


	4. Cigarettes

**Wow! Thank you for all the lovely reviews guys! It honestly means the world to me!**

* * *

The scent of pressed powder and cheap floral perfume filters through the air that night as Gerard gets ready, sitting at a small vanity mirror. It is all _so_ very glamorous Frank thinks, as he watches his host dab a long slender brush across his eyelid, a cigarette balanced in the remaining hand, like something out of one of those sixties movies. The aromas of brittle tobacco and sweet perfume swirl together, creating the most distinct feeling at the back of Frank's throat. Sitting there in the silence, surrounded by it all, everything so unfamiliar and unusual to him, he almost felt like he was on a different planet altogether.

It reminds him of when his cousins would come over sometimes as a child- those two older girls who lived across town and he didn't see often (their parents often fought when they got together, so meetings were sparse) - and he would watch then put make up on each other, applying strange ointments and spraying exotic substances on their bobby-pinned hair. His eyes would never avert them, watching every twist of the wrist as they did seemingly impossible tasks- glue spidery sets of lashes to their eyes, squeeze pimples till they were a bloody pulp, pluck away minute little hairs that would stray from the eyebrows. He was always curious to why they went through so much pain, for they looked far prettier before they started.

"Can you pass me that?"

Frank looks to where Gerard's finger is pointed- a small glass vial of black nail varnish- and passes it to him with a nervous grin. Gerard thanks him with a smile before butting out his cigarette in the ashtray to his side and beginning to layer a fresh coat of varnish over the previous chipped one that coated his stubby nails. They stay silent for a minute, Gerard simply perfecting while Frank sat, engulfing the solvent stained air.

"I forgot to ask you", Gerard chews at his lip in concentration, "You don't smoke do you? I should have probably offered you a fag by now. It kind of just slipped my mind…"

Frank shakes his head.

"No, I don't do anything like that. I don't smoke, don't do drugs, never been much of a drinker either". Frank's mind trails back to his few memories of alcohol, mostly blurry and vomit coated. Most were also followed by a stubborn lecture and household argument. "I don't think my parents would be too happy if I was…"

Gerard lets a casual chuckle slip his lips, Frank raising an eyebrow in return, puzzled.

"I'm sorry", Gerard stifles his laugh, "That was rude, but I mean, c'mon, really? You run away from home to get away from your parents and all of that crap, yet you still play by their rules? That just seems a little odd if you ask me."

Gerard had a point. It felt like Gerard always had a point, and as irritating as it was, Frank had to listen. He'd noticed that over the spell of the last day- Gerard always had something to say, and most of the time there was a significant reason behind it, some form of lesson to be learnt. Maybe that was just Frank's mind escalating things out of proportion, a common glitch of his seemingly naïve teenaged mind, but he felt like Gerard wanted to teach him something.

"Here, why don't you try one?"

Making sure his nails were dry first (he couldn't smudge them, lacking the time and patience to repaint them), Gerard threw over the pack of smokes and lighter that had been squeezed snugly in his pocket. Frank took the small box warily, eyes eating away at the large warning scarring the front. _'Fuck'_ was all he could think. Even the box was screaming at him not to do it, it promised _death_ for God's sake!

Gerard smirked, as he watched the younger boy's eyes trace over the label in a mild state of terror. He found it intriguing, to say the least.

"They're not that bad, seriously. I mean, they say they'll give you cancer, but so what? We're all going to die eventually, why not end it all a couple of years earlier?"

Franks was still sceptical. Opening the box and sliding a single cigarette out, he balanced the decision between his fingers, testing it out for size, trying to get the feel of it.

"I don't know… I'm not sure…"

"C'mon, I thought you wanted to get away from all of the rules of society? Rebel against all that?"

That is what Frank wanted, but he'd never wanted to smoke.

"No, Gerard, I can't!" Frank basically yelped as he dropped the cigarette and pushed the other objects over to Gerard in disgust. Gerard's reaction, however, is the opposite entirely. His face suddenly lights up, sparks, glistens with pride.

"Good, Frank! I was hoping you would do that!"

Frank's eyebrows furrow in confusion. He just really doesn't get this Gerard guy- one minute he's practically _forcing_ him to smoke, the next he's congratulating him for not. He's either got to be insane or have some sort of plan up his sleeve.

"I think the first thing you've got to learn about this whole 'rebellion' business", Gerard quotes with his hands before taking the discarded cigarette, loosely placing it between his lips and sparking it alight, "Is that you can rebel against whoever you like- rebel against the whole damn world if you really want to- but never under any circumstances should you rebel against yourself. That is the _worst_ thing you can do, because once you rebel against yourself, you're not really left with anything at all. You've always got to stay true to yourself, no matter how difficult it may seem, no matter how much people want you to become something else, no matter how much peer pressure you're subject to, you hear me? "

Frank did hear him. He really did.

* * *

He's kitted out in fishnets and stilettos when he heads out for work that night. Everything about him is so precise Frank thinks- cleanly shaved, pristine makeup, clothes hugging his hips- that he could easily, from a distance, pass as female. It was only as you got close up, noticed the lack of cleavage, his chunky, heavy 'man hands' so to put it, that you would realise that he was in fact nothing more than a guy in a dress. It didn't seem to bother Gerard, though. Pouting in the mirror, ruffling his hair, he was the very essence of femininity- glowing with colour and pride; seamless, maybe even _gorgeous_ if Frank let himself go that far.

It's not even just that he dressed in women's clothing; even his face seemed somewhat feminine, even without the layer of white powder. His features were soft- a slight upturned nose, cute and delicate, eyes that gleamed and glistened with different shades of green and gold, all melting together into a delicious blend of melodies, peppered with long eyelashes that danced over his cheeks casting intricate shadows, a jawline that was both solid yet gentle, curved lips… The list could go on and on, but it would never quite capture the very essence of the man.

"Right, well I'm off to work now…" Gerard stated as he grabbed his jacket from the peg beside the door. He acted like it was nothing- going off to work as a prostitute- like it was no different from any other job. That caught Frank's attention, hooked onto it and reeled it in completely. Gerard was so _casual_ about everything. With him, everything was the way it was. It was almost like he blatantly ignored any problems in his own life- his way of making money, his ramshackle house- yet catered for every single little one of Frank's, all without making a fuss and still managing to uphold a certain flare of elegance and grace. It was _mindboggling_.

"I probably won't be back till late", (Frank took a quick glance at the clock as he said this, picking up that the time was ten thirty), "Or I might not be back at all, depends how well business is going…"

Frank couldn't help but guffaw when Gerard said 'businesses', an action he automatically regretted, feeling guilty for his reaction. Gerard, however, brushed it off.

"Don't mock me! I'm telling you, being a gay prostitute is a renowned profession!"

And that's when it hit him. Hit him like a fucking truck doing ninety down a motor way.

Gerard was gay.

Of course, he'd always kind of _known _that Gerard was gay, he'd just never really _thought_ about it. It was as obvious as hell, but for some reason, washed in among all the other busy thoughts that had been buzzing through his head in the last twenty four hours, it was hidden like a needle in a hay stack.

It wasn't like Frank had a problem with the fact- it wasn't like he was the straightest specimen of the male population himself, it wasn't like he hadn't jacked off to gay porn more times than he'd care to admit to- but it just suddenly _hit_ him. He just suddenly absorbed the piece of information that had been floating around the air so carelessly over the course of the last day. Everything was suddenly just _there._

And with that little piece of information, a whole new flood of horrors came pulsing by, the largest of those being Gerard's actual _job, _what a day in his life actually _entailed._ Obviously this whole time he'd known he was a prostitute- that fact was as clear as day- but although he'd thought about how being a prostitute was _bad, _how being a prostitute was _dirty_, he'd never really thought about what a prostitute really _was._ He'd never really thought about Gerard bent over in an alley getting fucked through his fishnets.

And as soon as that image entered his mind, Frank was racing for the bathroom and vomiting into the toilet bowl. He wasn't really sure why- it wasn't like it was the most disgusting of things that had ever popped into his mind. Maybe it was just the sudden realisation of it all. Maybe it was just a sickening medley of all the events that had been taking place over the last few days. Maybe Frank was just feeling ill.

"Wow! You okay kid?"

Gerard is by Frank's side within seconds, kneeling on the linoleum floor and rubbing the boy's back as he wipes the bile off his chin with his sleeve. Frank is automatically _mortified._

"Are you okay? Here, I'll go get you a drink…"

"No, don't worry, it's okay… I'll get one myself, it's okay, I'm sorry, you just go out to work…"

Gerard shakes his head, mumbling something as he helps Frank up from the floor and guides him through to the kitchen table.

"Here, let me get you a glass of water… Are you feeling okay? You're not going to be sick again, are you? Maybe I should stay in and make sure you're okay…"

"No, no honestly, I'm fine, I think everything just kind of caught up with me, you know what I mean? I think I'm okay, it's just the stress of the last few days, you know? I'll be fine, honest…"

Gerard raises an eyebrow, cocks his head to the side and chuckles a little as he watches the younger man spew out just as much verbal vomit as he had in actual vomit earlier. He knows fine well that isn't the reason- the timing of the incident tells him otherwise- but he decides not to bring it up, in respect of the boy.

"Okay, _whatever_ you say… Well, I better be off then… Umm, help yourself to whatever you need from the kitchen, you know, eat whatever you feel like… Umm, I'll lock the door behind me but there's a spare in the dish beside the toaster if you need out or anything… Umm, I think that's about it", he concludes with small nod, "Oh yeah, and don't answer the door to strangers!"

Frank laughs off the last instruction, rolling his eyes at the absurd order. What age does he think he is, eight?

"I was being serious, y'know", Gerard replies with a smirk pulled across his face. Seriously, standing there all smug, hand-on-hip, it wouldn't be difficult to mistake the man as a woman.

Frank chews on his lip fretfully, simply letting out a soft 'oh' sound through his nerves, feeling embarrassed and wishing he would just shut up for a change.

Gerard laughs.

"You need to stop worrying all the time!"


	5. Jinx

**Aah shit! i'm sorry that this took like 5000 years to upload! I'll try and be quicker with the next one, I literally have no excuse! **

**Also thank you so much for all the reviews/favourites! I love you all! :D**

Frank falls asleep with relative ease that night, finding comfort in the constant drone of the television mumbling away in the background, flickering snippets of voices through his inconsistent dreams. It's a comfortable sleep, yet is still animated with scatterings of images and thoughts, jumbled, unsorted and disconnected.

He is woken suddenly some hours later by the opening of a door and the unmistakable clatter of heels against tiles.

"Oh shit! I didn't mean to wake you Frank! I didn't think you'd be through here, I thought you'd be through in my room…"

Frank's brow wrinkles in shock. In _Gerard's _room? He'd never really given too much thought to the third completely non-adventured room of the flat, just accepting that it was an empty void behind the crumbling door that he should never enter, so it was the furthest thing from his imaginings that Gerard would have _expected_ him to be sleeping in there! It confused him deeply. This man barely knew him, but he was perfectly okay with the idea of Frank just taking his fucking bed uninvited? It just didn't make sense to him.

"Oh, right… I didn't know I could, y'know…"

Gerard laughs heartily; reaching out his hand out to take Frank's and pulls him up from the sofa. This was Frank's first chance of getting a proper look at him that night- his hair was a mess, sticking up at angles, his makeup smudged and smeared down his face. It's strange. Gerard is a state after a night of things Frank really doesn't want to think too much about, yet his grin is still so fucking _fabulous _and he's still so goddamn elegant standing there in that dress despite having been out working the streets for hours.

"Nahh, c'mon. You go to my bed and I'll take the sofa from now on. I'm out most nights anyway."

Following the elder man's lead, Frank makes his way through the door to Gerard's room.

It's just as he expected. Greeted by the flickering of a bare light bulb, the room was nearly bare, filled with only the bare necessities- a single bed, wardrobe, etcetera- all timeworn and in need of replacement. Of course, this didn't matter too much to him as he crawled under the thick threadbare duvet, smiling goodnight to Gerard as he switched off the light and pulling the door over, leaving Frank to fall back into the depths of sleep.

* * *

The next few days passed in something of a similar fashion-Frank would spend the evenings alone, watching cheap reality shows on television and his brain slowly turning to mush inside his head. Meanwhile, Gerard would work the streets, returning late into the night, or sometimes even in the early hours of the morning, usually to find Frank passed out in either his bed or the sofa.

Frank had taken to cutting again, a habit which he had avoided for the first few days of his adventures out in the wild. It had never really been something that had crossed his mind, but of course, now as the adrenalin rush of running away started to fade, it was right there, gnawing at his brain and screaming for his attention.

It was like a child- a little toddler that he had to learn to control, but no matter how much he had trained it and organised it, there would always be days where it would break loose, grow out and control, cry and kick for his attention. And of course, he had to give it what it wanted. He had to break open a disposable razor, use the slices of metal to cut into his thigh. He had to. He couldn't help it.

When Gerard was in the house, which Frank had to note, wasn't all too often as when he was, he was usually sleeping, they would spend their time talking. Conversations flowed easily between the two, Gerard always having some sort of story to tell or some sort of interesting topic of conversation. He really was an interesting character, and Frank would have loved nothing more than to listen to him for hours.

It wasn't like listening to a friend, or at least not his friends. If Frank were to be completely honest, he had never taken much interest in any of his school mates, never mind the ones he was supposed to be _friends_ with. No, they talked of drama, gossip, regurgitated garbage that had little to no thought process and bored him to the bone. They talked of who was sleeping with who, of obviously exaggerated drinking stories, of some kid in his year who lied to some other kid, who was dating someone's ex. And he couldn't give a flying shit about any of it.

But when Gerard talked to him, it was nothing of the sort. It reminded him of when his mother's uncle would sometimes come round for dinner (_the young one, the weird one, what is he? A hippie or something isn't he?_ _That's why we never talk to your mother's side of the family; they're all a bunch of flamin' freaks!)_ and he would sit enthralled at the many tales he would tell.

His uncle was nothing like the rest of his family you see, or at least the members he was aware of, as unlike anyone else he knew, he didn't care what people thought about him. He didn't mind if people thought of him as a bit odd. And of course, this would lead to far more interesting conversations, him preferring to tell tales of how he was nearly kidnapped on the coast of Jamaica than discuss the rising gas prices with Frank's parents.

It really was a shame though. He moved away when Frank was barely twelve, going to start a business in some far off exotic country with his girlfriend.

But that was the good thing about Gerard- he didn't talk about boring things. He would talk about things of relevant interest- drunken escapades that were actually believable as well as highly amusing, talk of music and movies and comics that weren't pinned down as 'mainstream' and were more to Frank's taste, tales of the time Gerard got into a fight with a drag queen at a bar and ended up in a mess of high heels and makeup.

Sometimes Gerard would send Frank to the shop a couple of minutes down the road to get bits and pieces- normally food, Frank noticed-, claiming to be too busy or tired to make the trip himself. This of course didn't bother Frank in the slightest as being practically cooped up in the tiny flat nonstop for nearly a week made him grasp any opportunity to experience some fresh air and the outside world firmly with two hands. It was quite ironic really. Frank had ran away to gain more freedom, to break away from society, but had ended up trapped in a tiny gritty flat like a fish in a net.

Today however was one of the days where he was permitted a little freedom. Gerard, half-passed out on the sofa, cigarette dangling limply from his lips as he exhaled billowing puffs of smoke from his nose, had passed Frank a handful of quarters and told him to "run to the shop and get us a loaf of bread". The minor grinned obscenely at this request.

Frank felt safe here, though. In the confinement of Gerard's flat, on the unknown streets of the city, he felt a million miles away from the rest of the world. Back home was just a scary nightmare or a myth told to small children that he would never have to touch again. Here, although plagued with boredom, he was away from everything he had ever wanted to escape. It was like the perfumed enclosure of Gerard's flat was like a treatment to the disease of the city- it didn't quite cure it, but it certainly numbed down the symptoms. He felt like nothing else existed but the rotting walls and grimy streets, but they were different from the ones at home, and he was okay with that, for he felt like nobody would ever find him

He felt like he had never existed.

But of course, destiny said that feeling couldn't last forever.

So Frank made his to the corner shop, a short trip, only a couple of minutes on foot. Everything seemed normal, nothing out of the ordinary, the stocked up shelves around him enfolding him and painting a picture of safety for him to shop through. Everything was so normal, so very, very normal.

That was, of course, not including the picture of his face pinned up on the notice board beside the cash register.

Frank had to do a double take.

Yup, there it was, his latest school photograph smiling back at him in cheap grey tone ink, his hair shapeless and eyes dead. And there it was, big bold letters displaying the word 'Missing' above him.

Frank blinked at it for a second. He couldn't quite take it in. His mind had become a dumb, numb and sluggish, incapable of forming a thought as his heart raced past it, pulse speeding and heating and boiling and throbbing through his veins like a steam train tearing through his body, engines roaring and scorching. All his thought had stopped, but his body had went into overdrive, panic taking over everything, blistering him up and sending him rocketing out of the shop without a thought to what he was doing.

He wondered idly, as he raced up the steps to the flat, why the cash register hadn't noticed him. A missing child was surely quite an important issue, was it not? Would it not be something that you perhaps kept an eye out for?

The next thing he knew, he was lying on Gerard's couch. Screaming.

"They have my picture! Gerard, they have my fucking picture! They know where I am! Oh my God, I'm going to have to go back home! Shit, what-"

"Hey, Frank, quiet a second. Calm down. What happened? What d'you mean a picture?"

Gerard sat down on the sofa beside Frank, resting a hand on his shoulder, feeling the vicious pulses of his body mellow down to slow, gentle breaths.

"Now, Frankie, tell me what happened…"

Frank took a deep breath before retelling the story, trying his hardest to stay calm, to relax. It was difficult, but he did it.

Gerard pulls Frank closer to his side with every word, his hand tracing comforting swirls and patterns onto his back.

"You really don't want to go home, do you?"

The heavy silence lining the air answers Gerard's question perfectly. No words need to be said for him to understand the shining glimmer of fear taking hold of Frank's gaze.

"Right then", all of a sudden Gerard grabs Frank's hand and pulls him up from the sofa, "Come with me…"

* * *

Frank is sitting on a kitchen chair in the centre of Gerard's bedroom within minutes, the presence of his host looming over his shoulder like the cover of night. He is aware that the man is carrying several objects- a pair of scissors, an electric razor and the all familiar vanity mirror, which happens to be right in front of his face. Their eyes meet in the reflection.

"So, tell me Frank", Gerard begins, their eyes never parting in the mirror, "What haircut d'you think would make your parents the maddest?" His voice is sincere, never faltering.

Frank takes a minute to think this through. His mind wanders through memories of his childhood, remembering ever time his parents bitched about youth culture and the disgraceful appearance of his peers. There was one in particular that stuck out- a particular cut that he had always craved for but would never in his wildest dreams have ever got.

"Short at the sides", Frank began, "Almost a skinhead, bleached maybe, but long at the top, spiked up a little, with a bit of a fringe."

Gerard grins riotously.

"So a mohawk basically?"

Frank laughs in return. "Yeah, basically!"

Gerard grins wilder as he steps a little closer into Frank's side, taking a lock of his hair and twisting it between his fingers.

There is a thin layer of silence in the air for a moment-not awkward or anything, simply one of contemplation. Frank wonders when he ever became this comfortable around Gerard- he'd never felt this comfortable around anyone before! Over the last few days, he had slowly been feeling more at ease in the presence of the older male, a feeling which was rare for an angsty teenaged boy like him, always on the edge, never really feeling in his comfort zone.

He didn't feel comfortable around people. Not at all.

Except from Gerard.

And that scared him a little.

"So, do you want to make your parents mad?"

Frank chuckled lightly. Fuck yeah, he did! He could feel it pulsing through his body, the need to do something that was totally out of control, something that would piss his parents off so bad steam would pour from their ears and beams of anger from their eyes.

And this was his chance to do it.

But.

But he just couldn't.

He could see himself in the mirror- young, innocent, naïve- and there was just something about it that he couldn't step away from so easily. He felt safe in his skin. He felt like with his stupid, lifeless haircut he was neutral, lukewarm, harmless. He felt like nothing could go wrong like that. He felt like as long as he stayed like that, no harm would come his way- maybe nothing good would come either, but that was beside the point.

And he feared that was a side effect of the disease. He feared that by living in this stupid city, going to that stupid school, just playing along with that stupid lifestyle, that he had in return became, well, stupid. He felt like he couldn't think on his own, automatically placing anything that wasn't 'socially acceptable' into the category of 'not an option'. And that _really _fucking scared him.

Had he became the creature he was most afraid of?

Had the disease really sunk in that deep? Infected him that badly?

"I want to…" Frank began, "I want to do whatever it takes to get away from that place. I want to do whatever it takes to get away from that sort of 'do what's expected of you' type of attitude. I don't want to think that I have to be normal. I don't want to have to care whether other people think badly of me. I don't want to fall into the lifestyle that… that being back home's going to force me into. 'Cause I know what it'll be like if I just keep going with all of that- I'll probably end up having some job that I hate to death and settle down and find a nice girl, y'know? And I'm not really sure if I want all of that. To be perfectly honest, I don't really know what I want, but I know that I want more from life than that. I think if I was stuck with a life like that I'd probably end up killing myself within a year or two.

"And I know I probably sound stupid. I probably sound like I'm some stupid angsty teenager going off on a rant, thinking I'm 'different' or 'special' or something, or that I somehow deserve a different life from everyone else, but I mean… I don't really know how to put it… I just feel like we only have one chance at life, right? And everybody's getting sucked into the exact same life, like they feel like they have to fit into society and do what's gonna make the look good. But I mean, who are they doing it for? Not for their selves, that's for sure. It's just so they look good to the bloody neighbours, and it fucking does my head in!

"I mean, I've always thought it was kind of like a disease, if you know what I mean? It's like, once you get infected by it, once you catch onto their way of thinking, you've got to find a cure for it, or the infection will spread. And you know, if the cure for it is pissing off my parents and rebelling against them, then I'll goddamn do it! But the scary thing is… I'm scared that the infection might have grown too big already. I'm kind of too scared to do it. I'm scared it's too late…"

Gerard places the hairdressing apparatus on the floor, still keeping the mirror in front of Frank, before kneeling down to his level and wrapping an arm around his shoulder, pulling him in tight.

"I agree with you, mostly…" Gerard responded, picking up the scissors again and letting them hang loosely between his thumb and index finger, spiralling slowly in its suspension. Gerard bit onto his lip a little, eyes watching the snaking shadows cast onto the carpet, breathing deeply as he traced his words out in his mind. His nail polish caught reflection in the rusting metal.

"I don't think it is like a disease… Not really. A disease you can treat quite easily. Load yourself up on some drugs and pills and a disease can be cured, but of course, there is always the threat that it might come back again. It might bight you back, harder this time…

"I think, that way of thinking, it's not like a disease. It's more like a jinx. You see, a jinx, it's different from a disease. A jinx is far more difficult to get rid of. You can't just go to the doctor's and get a prescription. No. A jinx is something you're stuck with. It follows you about- it's not quite part of you, but it may as well be, 'cause the bad luck and misery it brings takes over everything in your life.

You've got to remove a jinx, and once you've removed it, it's gone for good. A jinx is usually found in a n object. A possession. And in your case it might be the feeling that you need to do whatever is expected of you. Do whatever your parents want you to. And maybe, to remove that feeling, you need to rebel a little. D'you understand?"

Frank watched Gerard's mouth form every single little word as he spoke, his refection mesmerising him. He couldn't help but adore him. Every word was so spectacularly crafted, so precise Frank feared that if he stopped listening he might miss something completely life changing. Everything Gerard said just made sense. Frank couldn't help but hang onto every little word like it was a lifeline.

"Rebelling is so easy, Frankie", Gerard continued, placing the scissors down on Frank's lap, "It's a natural human instinct- something so primitive and basic, yet society takes it away from us. It makes us feel like being ever so slightly different, doing something that isn't quite acceptable is so very, very _wrong. _ But it's not! It is completely right! It's fucking healthy and normal and you shouldn't feel like you have to fit in completely. And to be honest, if society didn't make us feel this way in the first place, there would be no need for rebellion at all, would there?"

Frank watches the scissors in his lap, watches his reflection squirm on the shine. And for the first time in a while, he didn't feel completely comfortable in his skin. It wasn't the sort of uncomfortable that he felt too far from perfect- not slim enough, not handsome enough, not normal enough- it was more the opposite. He felt too close to those ideals and too far away from himself.

And he was itching to change.

"Just do it. Cut my fucking hair off!"

Gerard grinned. Frank couldn't help but laugh back in reply.

It wasn't like a haircut would change everything- he knew too well that the problem wasn't just skin deep- but Frank felt like this was at least a first step in the right direction. Gerard was right. A jinx follows you wherever you go. You can run away from home, but lifestyle will come running back after you.

And as Gerard picked up the scissors from his lap, brought the closer to his head, Frank felt that maybe he was not just going to cut his hair, but cut away the lifestyle.

Maybe he was going to remove the jinx.

The scissors snapped around the first lock of hair.

Frank had never felt more free.


	6. Money

**I'm really sorry that this is the shortest and shittiest chapter ever!**

* * *

The hair cut didn't make Frank look very different- neither did the lip or nose piercing Gerard took him to get done the next day- but it made him feel like a completely different person. It was like with the simple cover of a slightly altered hairstyle gave him the ability to do, or be, anything he wanted.

It felt good though. He liked running his fingers up the sides, chopped and bleached, feeling the way the hairs prickled against his skin. He liked seeing himself in the mirror. He liked seeing, not the boring, nondescript Frank he was used to, but something far more true to himself. When he saw himself now, with a punk-show haircut and a face full of metal, he felt far more comfortable in his skin.

In fact, things felt a lot more comfortable altogether after that.

The reason behind this was that he found a cure to his boredom tucked away in the cosy back corner of a tiny second hand shop, buried beneath heaps of junk and bric-a-brac.

They had been out shopping together that afternoon, strolling through the few tiny shops that littered the streets as they made their way back from the local piercing parlour. It was a rainy afternoon, the summer streets as bleak as ever, though Frank could swear there was a whisper of autumn in the air- the leaves on the tress a little yellower, the sky perhaps even a little greyer- but it could just be his imagination. He hasn't been there for long, but it feels like a million years since he's been home.

One of the shops they had visited was a second hand store, mostly packed with a load of crap that Frank didn't think any one would ever dream of buying, but among all the rubbish, there was one little thing that caught his eyes.

A guitar.

It was nothing special. Nothing out of the ordinary. It was just a cheap little second had electric guitar, but it was enough to spark his memory and bring to the forefront of his mind the tiny little piece of information he had nearly forgotten.

He fucking _played _guitar!

Not very well, he had to admit, probably no better than average (_always had to be Mr fucking Average, didn't he?) _but it was one of the few things that he did enjoy to do with himself. It was strange, Frank had spent so much time concentrated on rebellion and angling anger towards his old life, he hadn't even spared a thought towards one of the few things he did like about home.

"You play guitar?" Gerard had observed as he Frank had picked the object up and weighed it out under his hands. It was light. Cheap. Probably close to falling apart upon touch but it didn't really matter to him all that much as his fingers could still glide easily along the strings, forming the same chords and plucking the same notes he used to. That was all he really cared about.

"A little",

Gerard watched contently as Frank's hands merged with the instrument, the tune- something punky, something coarse- almost becoming part of him, like it was second nature. It was curious how Frank could go so long without even giving music in general a single thought and still manage to remember every tiny little flicker of his fingers on the fret board.

"That's a bit more than a little!"

Frank shrugged back in reaction as he fiddled with one of the machine heads. He had never thought of his ability as anything special.

"So, how about we go see how much this thing costs?"

Frank's hands dropped from the instrument automatically.

"You- You're going to _buy_ me it?"

Gerard giggled as he picked the instrument from Frank's arms.

"Well, yeah, of course! Can't have that talent going to waste, can we?"

Frank bit onto his lip. Chewed a little. Ripped a bit of the skin off.

He couldn't let Gerard buy it for him- he knew fine well that no matter how cheap the guitar was, Gerard did _not _have the money to buy it. Gerard wasn't well off. Not by any means. He was ridden with financial problems as it was, something he had noticed not only because of his job and his flat, but also by tiny little things that hid beneath the surface (most of his mugs were missing handles or badly broken, he had been using an eyeliner well due replacement since Frank had arrived, he always ate the outsiders on bread…) and Frank did not want to add to his problems. Also, Gerard had done so much for him already, how could he possibly accept any more?

"But…"

"No buts!" Gerard exclaimed, placing a single finger over Frank's lips, sealing them, "This guitar shall be yours!"

Gerard bought Frank the guitar. Frank never got to find out how much it cost.

* * *

It was the next day that the doorbell rang.

In all the time Frank had been with Gerard, he had never seen Gerard make contact with another human, bar a couple of shop keepers, and it was only the sound of the bell that dawned this revelation.

It was almost like Gerard didn't need human contact. It was like he was too good for other people. Or at least that was how it felt. Gerard never said anything about having friends, relationships, family- it was like he was a completely different being altogether, an almighty force that simply travelled through life without crossing paths with another. It wasn't like he was a hermit, for he had told many a story about crazy parties and social gatherings, but throughout all of these tales, not once had a name been dropped. He had never said 'my friend so-and-so' or ever mentioned having friends in general. It was almost like he didn't need to carry people along with him. He could pick them up and drop them wherever he pleased.

He never looked lonely.

Maybe he did have friends. Maybe that was it. Maybe he had a huge group of friends that he never told Frank about because he thought they were too 'good' for the likes of him. Maybe Frank was just a child to him. That would make sense.

And all of a sudden Frank felt a pang of jealousy.

And it fucking _hurt._

It surprised Frank even more though when Gerard looked _himself _surprised by the doorbell. It was that sort of sudden flicker of shock where you were expecting someone to come over but had totally forgotten about it until the very moment they turned up.

"_Shit._"

Gerard jumped up from the spot on the sofa where he had been sitting, contently watching television, grabbing, Frank by the wrist as he went, directing him through to the bathroom.

"Wha- what's happening G-"

"Just, do what I say for a second", his voice was calm, sound, stable, but barely rose to more than a whisper "I just need you to go here for a minute and don't come out till I say you can. Is that okay, sweetie? Can you do that for me? I just need you to stay in there and not make a sound, okay? This won't take too long, I promise. Okay?"

"But Gerard, what's going on? Is something wro-"

"Nothing's wrong, this won't take a moment, I promise!"

He flashed a reassuring smile as he guided Frank into the bathroom, standing him in the bath tub and pulling the shower curtain around him. Within a second, he was gone, pulling the door behind him and leaving Frank alone surrounded by grimy white tiles and salmon pink curtains.

Frank listened. He was silent. Held his breath, tried to make out any single little sound through the walls and the heavy pounding of his heartbeat. He just wanted to know what was happening.

He just wanted to know if he was safe.

He just wanted to know if Gerard was safe.

Then there was a voice. A voice that he was pretty sure didn't belong to Gerard- it was smooth, leaking from the seams with liquidy Californian bliss, exotic, unlike Gerard's gritty Jersey accent.

"What took you so long to answer the door? I thought you had died, for God's sake!"

"Aw, shit, I'm sorry Logan, couldn't find the bloody keys…"

"Hmmm… 'course. Now let's just cut to the chase, shall we? Where's your earnings?"

There's a ruffling, some muttered swearing, the clank of porcelain and then silence before the sound rustling took over again.

"That's quite a lot you've made this week. I'm sure it'll pay for the fucking debt you owe me."

"Business was good this week, but that's beside the point. You said I don't need to pay you back for that! You said you could just let one week slip."

There was a laugh- a fucking horrible, stomach churning laugh- dry and brittle yet smooth and slippery at the same time.

"Things change, you know how it is. I'm short for cash and you seem to have plenty of it."

"But what'll that leave me? C'mon, you can't do this to me. How the hell am I supposed to survive off this?"

"Listen, Gerard, it's part of the deal. I took you in, let you sleep in one of my flats, decided to not turn you into the cops like I should have done, and all you have to do is let me take what I need from your weekly earnings. It's simple. I'm surprised you're still fucking arguing about it after all these years…"

"I know, I'm sorry Logan."

"Hmm… It's cool, Way. Just as long as you keep up with the payments, you keep a roof over your head. You know the drill."

"Yeah, thanks."

There's a slight silence for a moment, filled by gentle ruffling, something clicking.

"Right I better be off then. See you again same time next week?"

"Yeah, that should be fine. I'll see you around."

And that's it. Nothing more is said but the casual clucking of a shutting door and the flopping sound of someone (Gerard) falling back onto a sofa.

Frank can feel Gerard's frustration himself.

He waits on Gerard to tell him he can come back through.

And waits.

And waits.

And waits some more.

It's probably only a couple of minutes, but it feels like forever. It feels like forever because he has no idea what's happening and that is all he wants to know.

Eventually the door clicks open and Gerard pulls back the shower curtain with a huge grin on his face. A fucking radiant, goddamn dazzling grin, just like nothing had happened.

"I'm sorry about that, everything's fine now. I just had to sort a couple of things out, y'know?"

Frank smiled.

Just like nothing had happened.


	7. Beer

**I'd like to apologise for this chapter being uploaded a hell of a lot later than I was expecting. There were some ~ unforeseen circumstances~ that delayed me a little.**

* * *

Frank never mentioned Logan.

It wasn't like he didn't want to know who he was, because he really fucking _did. _He wanted to know everything about him, who he was, what he was doing, what the money was all about, why he was bothering Gerard…

Fucking everything.

But he didn't ask.

Because he didn't want to sound rude.

So he just let the questioning thoughts sit there, grow old, start to go stale and leave a stench to tease through the air. They were never brought up, but they were always there, twisting around in the background.

* * *

It was a couple of days later Gerard asked if he wanted to go into town for drinks. Frank had been bemused by this- not only was there no way in hell he would ever get served at a bar, but why the hell would Gerard _want_ to go out for drinks with him? Did they not spend enough time together already? Was Gerard not sick of his puny little face?

Apparently not.

He had never been to a bar before though, not really. He was quite sure that somewhere in his faintest memories he had perhaps stumbled into a bar with a friend, drunk and downright obliterated, only to be thrown out straight away by the laughing bar tender.

He didn't think his parents had ever taken him to one either, never even as a child to sip soda while his parents drank wine. No. They had never really been like that. They liked to deny the fact that they drank. They liked to pretend they were sensible, clean, respectable. And they were. Being an alcoholic was disgusting. Binging on straight vodka at the weekends was vile, but if the first thing you do when you come home from work ever night is crack open a bottle of wine and continue to drink it for the remainder of the evening until you pass out on the sofa, well, that was completely acceptable.

It was all about reputation.

Reputation however, was something Gerard appeared to be unaware of.

Not including kerb-calling, Frank had never seen Gerard go out the house in drag (he did hate using the word 'drag' as it felt like a very fake word, very synthetic. It made him think of boys putting on their sister's dress for Halloween, which was very far from the case for Gerard) but today was a different case. He wasn't quite as dramatic as he would usually be for work- a black pencil skirt hugging his hips, a band t-shirt loosely tucked in with a set if heavy boots adorning his feet- but he would certainly still turn some heads as he strutted down the street.

Not that he cared.

Frank had never witnessed Gerard receiving any abuse due to the way he dressed, but there was a first for everything, and as they made their way that afternoon to the bar, Frank was struggling to count the number times such disgusting slurs as 'faggot' and 'tranny' were thrown at him. He felt almost sick, and he wasn't even the one receiving the spite. There was Gerard, this beautiful, graceful creature, being degraded from all angles, and Frank could only watch with his jaw hanging wide.

"Why do you do it", Frank inquired after one particularly hateful blast, "Why do you dress in women's clothes if you get so much shit for it?"

Gerard laughed in response, which surprised him a little. Frank wasn't really sure if in all the time he had been living with Gerard if he'd ever confronted him about the way he dressed. He wasn't sure if he'd confronted him about a lot of things.

"Well, for a start, it's not really women's clothing, is it? It may have been designed for a woman, but I bought it. It's my clothing, not a woman's", Gerard chuckled lightly to himself. He could imagine Gerard lying in bed alone at night unable to sleep, and thinking of the joke and not being able to wait to use it. It felt like something Gerard would do. "Besides, a couple of insults aren't going to put me off doing what I want to do. This is how I feel confident, Frank. Like this, or in a dress, or even just with a bit of makeup plastered to my face, that's how I feel beautiful. You can't blame me for wanting to be beautiful, can you?"

Frank certainly couldn't blame him for it as he perfectly understood what he meant. When Frank saw his own reflection now, with his haircut and piercing and borrowed shirts, he felt beautiful. He felt like this was how he was supposed to look, as opposed to the creature his parent's had created him to be. Maybe he didn't look perfect- there would always be little things he wanted to change about himself, but he just put that down to being human- but this was the closest he'd ever been.

Several minutes passed in silence after that, until eventually, on the corner of a crescent shaped street, nestled between a vintage clothing shop and one selling old records. The street had a distant feel to it, like it wasn't really part of the city. It was like someone had cut a chunk out of somewhere cultured; Paris maybe, moved it and stuck it in the middle of the grimy, graffitied streets of Jersey.

There was a buzz in the air. Something electric. It was odd, like some sort of absorbing power was oozing from the sandstone bricks that shaped the buildings. It was like that tiny little corner of the world was an escape, like it was island, millions of miles from anything else, so far from civilisation it was untouchable.

The inside told a story very much the same.

It wasn't like any other bar Frank had seen- it wasn't a hectic nightclub filed with music and dancing, nor was it an empty old seedy bar with aging men passed out over the counter as they attempted to wash away their nights with the bitter taste of whiskey. No, it was something else.

There was something fresh about it. Maybe not in décor- there was no real plan in the furniture, everything quite disjointed or mismatched or looked second hand, such as the recycled wine bottles taking the place of candle holders- but in atmosphere, it was something quite striking. Something about the way conversation fluttered through the air like a flurry of moths, spiked by the clinking of glasses or a particularly shrill laugh. Or maybe it was the way daylight bubbled through the set of large windows that lined the back wall of the room, creating blurs of sunshine and obscure shadows.

Or perhaps it was just the people in general. That was the first thing Frank noticed about the place- that unlike other bars, it wasn't just filled with the one kind of person, everyone was different varied. At one table a girl in her early twenties sat sipping a beer and writing in a notebook, while the one next two her three young men laughed loudly over inside jokes and spilled drinks down their shirts. Across the room a family sat, the parents sharing wine while their two children scribbled their way through a colouring book.

The air was potent with the scent of the fresh wax that coated the tables and the musk of the old books that lined the walls in heavy sets of shelves and the of acrylic paint that was thickly applied to the canvases that adorned the walls.

The place just had _atmosphere._

"So, drinks?"

Gerard grins down at Frank as he motions him towards the bar. Frank follows with an edge of caution, but doesn't hold back, meeting his every step.

"Hey, Gerard! How you doing? Who's this you're with?"

The man at the bar eyes Frank up with a smile. He's tall, lanky- almost in a goofy fashion- with mousy brown hair pushed back from over his eyes. Tanned, Frank also notices, with an outbreak of summer freckles scattered across his nose, though these are starting to fade with the coming autumn chill. His accent is rough and dry like the Arizona desert.

"John! Oh yeah, this is Frank, he's my roommate, bunking with me for the moment, y'know? And oh, um, this is John; he's an old friend of mine…"

Frank's pride swells pink with the mention of the word 'roommate'. Roommate. Being Gerard's roommate. It was a word he had never considered using to describe their relationship, but now it had been brought about it lingered in the air like the scent of sweet cologne. It was nice. It felt comfortable.

On the other hand, the relationship between John and Gerard felt a little more than comfortable. It was just something about the way they smiled at each other across the bar that hinted towards them being a little more than 'old friends'.

And Frank wasn't really sure how he felt about this.

Jealous maybe?

"Aw right! Nice to meet you, Frank!"

"Yeah, nice to meet you too!"

"So, how about I get you guys two beers on the house?"

Gerard laughs heartily. "If you're offering then who are we to deny them?"

* * *

"So who's John?"

Gerard laughs as he places his beer to his lips, glugging back an ample dose. They had been at their table for several minutes now, discussing simple things, sipping at their drinks, before Frank's curiosity built up to a pressure he couldn't stand, forcing him to ask.

(He wouldn't ask about the other mysterious character that had appeared in his life though.)

"John, oh, he's just a friend…"

The smirk in Gerard's voice was too pungent to ignore.

"Really?" Frank's eyebrow rose in suspicion.

"Okay, well, not exactly", Gerard giggled slightly between words, "He's an, ummm… I'm not sure how to put this nicely, but he's a client of mine, y'know?" He pauses to take a sip of his beer, sniggering into the bottle, "We've known each other for a couple of years now, and he's became a bit more than a regular customer…"

The sharp slice of jealousy striking Frank's heart leaves a burning sensation in the pit of his stomach.

"So are you like… a couple?"

The awkward tension in the air is eradicated with the spitting of a drink and the bellow of Gerard's laugh. He composes himself, wipes his chin and continues.

"No. No we're not. John's straight."

"What?"

Frank doesn't understand. How can he be straight if he pays for sex with another _man? _It just goes beyond all boundaries of common sense.

"I know, it sounds crazy, but honestly, he is! He has a girlfriend and everything, he just… I'm not sure how to put this delicately, but he likes to take dick up the ass basically, and I don't think she's willing to use a strap-on, y'know what I'm saying?"

Frank laughs at Gerard's explanation, yet nods in agreement.

"To be honest, these days, it's more for the company…" His smile becomes sombre for a moment, slightly melancholy "He's having a tough time at the moment, y'know? His mother's really ill and stuff, has been for years, and he's getting the brunt of it. None of his siblings want to help him out, and his girlfriend's being all obnoxious because he isn't giving her so much attention…" He pauses, considering how to place his next few words. "He tells me a lot of stuff, tells me what's happening in his life. He says he's not sure if he loves his girlfriend anymore, or if he ever really has. He says that he wants to leave her, leave everything behind, but he can't. He's got responsibilities, y'know? He's got his mother. He says if she wasn't there, he would be gone. But he can't leave her, he simply can't. He can't just let her be forgotten…"

Frank knew exactly what Gerard meant- he'd seen care homes, those big grey buildings with grimy windows and even grimier people inside- staff that couldn't give a shit about their job and more notably the mass of elderly, deranged and packed into the buildings like sardines into a can. He'd always hated those things. He hated the thought that someone could just completely abandon a family member- a mother, a father, a grandparent- and pass the burden onto someone else.

Frank didn't ever want to get to that stage in life. Get to the stage that he was so ill, or so mad, that he was literally tearing apart someone else's- that they might need to get rid of him in order to live.

Frank would make sure someone shot him before then. Right between the eyes.

"I don't know why I just told you all of that", Gerard continued, giggling slightly, "It's not really my story to tell…"

"Do you like John, like as in more than a friend or a… customer?" Despite Gerard reassuring him that there was nothing going on between the two men, Frank still felt a pang of jealousy, subtle, but undoubtedly there.

"No Frank, I don't. I don't think I could ever be in a relationship with John, and I would never want to."

Frank let the words settle in the air, let them stew and become musky. There was something about them that seemed unsure, uneasy perhaps.

"Are you in a relationship?"

Gerard guffaws at this, even resorting to wiping a stray tear from his eye.

"Well, do I look like I'm in the position to be in a relationship just now?" He shakes his head, sniggering as he downs the last few droplets of his beer. "My job doesn't exactly attract matches, does it? And anyway, when was the last time you saw someone coming round my flat?"

(Frank remembers but he doesn't think Gerard does.)

"I don't know, stop being mean to me, dude, I was just wondering! So… Have you been in many relationships?"

Gerard raises an eyebrow as he watches Frank take another sip of beer, the bitter sting slipping so easily down his throat. "What's with all of these questions all of a sudden, kid? That drink isn't getting to your head, is it?" He chortles lightly at his own joke.

"No… I'm just wondering. I don't really know that much about you, that's all."

Gerard nods in agreement. "That is true. I haven't told you all that much about myself, have I? A bit odd really, since you're living with me and, well, I guess you could say I'm a bit of a shady character." He smiles sheepishly at Frank, which is met with a grin. "Well, I haven't been in a relationship for a while now, and any I have had in the past haven't been sustained for long. They were all pretty insignificant- nice people, lovely, beautiful people, but none of them could quite handle the fact that there boyfriend slept with people to get his money. I don't blame them, really."

Frank watches Gerard, just watches him for a moment- watches how his eyelashes flicker as he fidgets with the placemat on the table, rolling the sheet of plastic between his stubby, bitten fingernails. He imagines Gerard meeting these people that he speaks of, maybe even in this exact bar, of him falling for them, of him kissing them and caring for them and just wanting _them,_ and then going out that very night to blow greasy men behind dumpsters and get fucked into the mattress in some sleazy hotel. He imagines how much it'll break his heart to do it, but it's the only way he can find to make ends meet. And then his current love interest- that person he was growing so fond of- would leave just as quickly as they arrived, gone from the picture with little to no trace.

But for now all he could do was watch Gerard. Watch him be forever alone.

Frank didn't know much about Gerard. But that's what he saw.

He wanted to know everything about him. Every single little insignificant detail.

"I don't even know what age you are…"

Frank hadn't realised that he had been thinking out loud until Gerard replied.

"Well, what age do you think I am?"

Frank thought this over for a moment, kneaded the question around in his mind. "I'm not sure… Older than me, at least, right?"

Gerard nodded bluntly. "Yeah, that is right. How about I give you a clue?"

Frank urged Gerard on.

"I'm older than that guy over there…"

Gerard pointed across the room to where a sulky teenager sat with his parents. A choppy fringe covered one eye, topped with grey beanie, his ears stretched to an almost painful level. He looked older than himself; Frank guessed eighteen, maybe nineteen at a push.

"…But I'm younger than that man over there…"

The second man was standing at the bar ordering a drink from John, a cocky smile plastered across his face. His hair was short yet scruffy, sticking up in all angles and directions, and a checkered shirt hung from his torso. He looked quite a bit older than Gerard- his face somewhat more mature, aged. Frank guessed he was in his late twenties, perhaps even in his early thirties.

"Are you… twenty three?"

Gerard grins wildly, profusely.

"Very close actually! I'm twenty four!"

Frank laughs. Gerard having an age just doesn't feel right. Something about it sat awkwardly in the air. To Frank, Gerard had always been this immovable force, something that and been there for the whole of eternity- ageless and permanent.

But now it was different. Now Gerard was _something_ as opposed to _everything_. He had a life and a story. He had a beginning and inevitably would have an end.

That scared Frank a lot.

And he wasn't quite sure why.


End file.
